Passively Q‐switched operation of Yb,Ho:LuVO4 laser with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors.

A continuous‐wave (CW) and passively Q‐switched (PQS) Yb,Ho:LuVO4 laser pumped by a 978.6‐nm laser diode (LD) is demonstrated. The maximum output power of 131 mW at 2059.78 nm in CW regime is achieved with a pump power of 3.01 W, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 10.74%. Under PQS mode operation, an average output power of 45 mW and a shortest pulse width of 100 ns were acquired by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors, and for all we know, this is the first report about the PQS Yb,Ho:LuVO4 laser. In addition, a maximum energy per pulse of 12.6 nJ with a pulse repetition frequency of 7.692 MHz was obtained, corresponding to a peak power of 58.5 mW. The beam quality factor was measured to be Mx2 $\,{{\boldsymbol{M}}}_{{\boldsymbol{x}}}^{{\boldsymbol{2}}}$ = 1.10 and My2 ${{\boldsymbol{M}}}_{{\boldsymbol{y}}}^{{\boldsymbol{2}}}$ = 1.10 from the PQS Yb,Ho:LuVO4 laser. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]